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[Here is your legally obligated “I’m gonna take you for a ride”.]

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TalkBack / Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics (Switch) Review

« on: September 09, 2024, 07:01:00 AM »

Here is your legally obligated “I’m gonna take you for a ride”.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/68505/marvel-vs-capcom-fighting-collection-arcade-classics-switch-review

Capcom is the architect of the modern fighting game.  The Street Fighter series blew up thanks in part to the arcade fighting scene of the ‘90s, endured through lulls in popularity, and in the modern day resurgence still stands as the biggest institution of the genre.  In the late ‘90s, they ran up the tally by inventing a new sub genre - the tag-team fighter.  Collaborating with Marvel, they first produced games based on their storied superheroes and slowly integrated them with the Capcom cast of characters to create some of the most frenetic player-versus-player experiences to date.  I spent a shameful amount of quarters in my youth playing the likes of Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, often negotiating with my parents to spare a few dollars and leave me there rather than me acting like Sadness from Inside Out being dragged along by Joy.  Now thanks to Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, I’m able to experience the history of this genre to the fullest.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is the latest compilation of another arcade fighting game series.  Featuring six arcade fighting games (and The Punisher beat-em-up!), the focus this time is on the lineage of tag battles and the cooperation between the two companies that made it possible, including X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1996), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), and The Punisher (1993)

Before I dive into the breakdown of individual games, it’s worth noting some pretty extensive features.  Each game can be played in their respective English or Japanese versions.  Settings include attack power, timer speed, Coin Mode or Free Play, Boot Display, Button Assignment, Choice Between P1 or P2, and Light Reduction.  Every game has a training mode, with hitboxes, damage counters, and button inputs on screen.  If you struggle to remember combos and how to activate the special moves, each game has a marquee card like the old arcade cabinets had, which is a very cool feature.  There is also a museum with galleries of key art and advertisements, and a jukebox containing each game’s soundtrack.  There are achievements (in this case called Fighter Awards), and each award includes a medal with a neat little picture inside.  While I was not able to find a match online prior to launch, there will be casual, ranked, and custom queues, and each game has online leaderboards.  I was happy to see the option to be on standby while playing the game of choice.  I’m overall satisfied with what they offer.  

There are various CRT filters offered, and the games default to using one of them.  There’s several options available with different shades and attempts to recreate the old CRT scanlines.  You can also choose not to use one at all if the attempt to emulate screens of the past doesn’t suit you, just know that the games default to option D and they can be changed in the in-game options.

When it comes to the games themselves, I found most of them enjoyable, even if one was superfluous.   X-Men: Children of the Atom is ground zero for the collection, but some muddy visuals and sluggish movement makes it hard to return to. The slight improvements from X-Men vs. Street Fighter to Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter made the former redundant.  Marvel Super Heroes is where those characters' traits were honed-in and the Infinity Stones add a random element that is equal parts exciting and infuriating.  Marvel vs. Capcom 1 and 2 are the stars of the show, the former refining the formula and the latter blowing it out to ridiculous proportions with a huge cast and 3 vs. 3 combat.  I reveled in playing through each one, even if just as an exercise in genealogy for some of them.  I’ve been pulled back into standing at an arcade in the mall next to the food court, figuring out how to make the screen flash with maximum lasers.  The swap from 1 v. 1 to 2 v. 2 was a revolutionary step, and it was an exciting time to be a fighting game fan with the manic energy this series brought.  Being able to bring that back home has been a joy in a world with arcades largely dwindled down to barcades that usually have the old standbys of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 3.  And then you have The Punisher, an enjoyable and uncomplicated beat-em-up with a little more focus on realistic weapons than I'm comfortable with.  

Controllers are the elephant in the room for the Switch version.  All of these games rely heavily on the quarter circle forward motion on the controller, and the standard joycon buttons are not well equipped for a Hadouken.  The Pro Controller has a squishy feel to it that never feels precise enough to consistently hit attacks.  The Hori Split Pad Pro is a meaningful improvement if something closer to an Xbox controller is what you’re looking for.  If you’re someone who's invested enough to have a fight stick, you’re all set.  Personally, I compromised with a pro controller when docked and used a Hori Switch D-Pad Controller when playing handheld.  Ultimately it’ll be up to you what your level of investment should be for the right hardware.  

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is appealing to a very specific audience.  Part of that audience are the arcade nostalgiacs who will feel warm and fuzzy with every Shinku-Hadouken.  The others are fighting game fans who are curious about this series that hasn’t seen an update since 2017.  I’m the former, and this is the most fun I've had all year.  This is a great addition to the recent efforts to make important arcade games accessible on current platforms, and I’m overjoyed that it’s available at my fingertips.  I think the compilation is excellent, and anyone with an affinity or curiosity of the genre owes themselves to tag-in with this game.

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TalkBack / Re: Cat Quest III (Switch) Review

« on: August 07, 2024, 09:40:00 PM »

I liked the first two games, so this one should be good.
"Could have been a tad longer" isnt a con for me

I went back and bought the first one after finishing this, so I still have plenty to whet my beak on.

[A furrociously fun pirate tale.]

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TalkBack / Cat Quest III (Switch) Review

« on: August 06, 2024, 06:43:11 AM »

A furrociously fun pirate tale.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/68052/cat-quest-iii-switch-review

In recent memory, cats have been the secret sauce slathered on top of a juicy indie game burger.  I had heard good things about the Cat Quest series, but didn’t feel compelled to give the series a try until Cat Quest III was announced and a companion demo was released alongside it.  That demo was like catnip for me, and put the swashbuckling adventure on my must-play list with the promise of a bright, cheerful, and breezy action RPG with a silly, pun-filled sense of humor throughout.  Thankfully, it kept that promise

Cat Quest III follows the adventure of a tabby cat protagonist who's been ordained as one in a line of beings called Seekers - those who are predestined to find an artifact called the North Star, with a legend that whoever reaches it can have any desire of theirs granted.  With an unnamed ghost partner whose origin is veiled in mystery, the duo embarks on an epic quest to explore the world and get their paws on the North Star before other factions of pirates can (and dig up some treasure along the way).  The cast of characters are a wide variety of species ranging from cats, rats, boars, and birds, each with their own leaders who are brimming with colorful personalities and submerged in silly wordplay.  A lot of attention was put into the script - despite the hilarity, storytelling feels sincere and I found myself laughing, caring for the characters’ story arc, and even experiencing some sentimental moments.  This story doesn’t have a profound presence, but its light touch is perfect for the lighthearted tone the game is looking for.

The meat and potatoes of Cat Quest III is its dungeon crawling.  Littered across the map are caves and towers to explore that have anywhere from 2 to 5 or more chests to open, bookmarked by a big treasure (and usually a boss battle) at the end.  Dungeons are linear - there’s a clear primary path and sections are blocked off by doors that are opened either by switches or defeating a room of enemies.  Your combat toolkit includes a melee, ranged, and magic attacks.  Melee weapons include standard swords, Wolverine-like claw gloves that slice briskly, and shields which inflict damage when perfectly blocking enemy attacks.  From a distance you can use various guns and magic wands with elemental attacks like ice and fire.  Magic spells similarly have different elemental attributes and can have status effects like stunning enemies or pushing them backward.  It didn’t take long to get in a rhythm of slashing a mouse with a sword, pushing them back with a fire blast, then unloading all my gun ammo on them for the kill.  At times I'd choose to pull out the claws, feverishly cutting up a boar and peppering them with blasts of fire from my wand.  The game encourages you to tailor the experience your way by mixing and matching these tools.

How you equip yourself is critical to combat success, and also includes wearable gear.  Like any good RPG, your appearance changes with the head, torso, and leg clothing chosen.  There are clothing sets that can be found in different dungeons, each with their own flavor text and attributes.  For example, some boost overall health, some increase mana recovery, and others have elemental resistances.  Gear can be leveled up at a blacksmith in town in exchange for gold coins that increase those stats.  It didn’t take long before I picked a few sets to focus on leveling up.  A minor grievance I have is that it does stymie the mix-and-match feeling that the weapons provide.  I also wish the game had an option to sell off undesirable gear.  By end game your inventory is filled with undesirable items that I would have loved to scrap for coin to fuel further level increases.  Instead it just sits there, forcing me to sift through them while figuring out what to equip.  In that same town, there’s also a fortune teller who can level up spells for the price of a magic currency that is more rare to find.  If you’ve had your fill of those spaces, you can take a trip to the local milk bar where a super-buff cat bartender will reward you with experience points and gold for bounties on the heads of story critical and side mission bosses.  Don’t forget to check in on them from time to time.

Exploring the world by foot and ship is a great way to mix travel and keep it from feeling stale.  The cat is quick on its feet making running from point a to b seamless.  On each island there are mini side missions to pick away at, as well as hidden treasure chests and dungeons.  There is also a tally of how many chests there are on land as well so it’s easy to keep track of how much of an area you’ve completed.  Once you’re tired of that island, find a dock to summon your vessel and zoom across the ocean to find other patches of land to explore or engage in sea combat with other pirate ships.  The ship can zoom across the small map with relative ease and in quick time, which is helpful for a game which encourages lots of back-and-forth with the mission structure.  Sea battles are a great mix of swerving around cannonballs, firing your own, hitting them with special bomb attacks, and outmaneuvering them with slick twists and turns.  The ships don’t turn on a time, so I had to circle around ships, careen across islands to create distance, and sometimes bullied them by pushing them along with a direct movement toward them.  Like the storytelling, none of these systems have depth, but encounters are always short lived enough to where they never wear thin.

I don’t have a reference point of the prior Cat Quest games due to having never played them, but Cat Quest III has been a delightful, if brief journey full of whimsy, exciting (if simple) combat, fun character interactions, and the joy of sailing the seas.  Once it sunk its teeth in me, I couldn’t detach myself from the switch and beat it in only a few sittings.  That’s the power of Cat Quest III, a game that knows when to move on from any combat scenario or story beat before getting old and a universe where a kitten can spend hours combing every grain of litter to find new surprises or rewards each time.  Cat Quest III belongs in your Switch library, and you will have a fantastic time.

[Shuffling village building and deck management is a fun mix in an over saturated market.]

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TalkBack / Stacklands (Switch) Review

« on: July 12, 2024, 11:19:00 AM »

Shuffling village building and deck management is a fun mix in an over saturated market.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/67820/stacklands-switch-review

Stacklands is a town building and management sim within the structure of a card builder.  Cards represent things like villagers, berry bushes, trees, and rocks.  Within a daily cycle, you can have villagers farm food, cut down trees, or break rocks into usable materials that can be combined with items to craft new items such as weapons and tools.  Doing so requires placing the villager down on the one (or many) cards, initiating a progress meter that produces the crafted item as a new card once completed.  At the end of the day cycle is an upkeep process where villagers must eat, otherwise they expire.  The game ends when you no longer have any villagers left.  To build a thriving community, there are several different blind packs of cards  which you can use coins to purchase.  These packs have different themes, focusing on such categories as farming, weaponry, advanced materials, and fishing.  There are also phases of combat where a portal will open and release the floodgates with several fantasy monsters such as goblins, giant rats, and monster treasure chests, forcing you to manage that intermittent threat.  

Tearing down the layers, this is a game of cycle management and automation.  Early on you’re relying on manual labor to complete menial tasks like cavemen taking rocks and sticks to make spears, picking berries off the bushes, and breaking them down into consumable resources.  Over time you can build up farms to auto farm food, quarries to create rocks, and lumber yards to produce wood, for example.  This frees your manpower to use their labor towards more complex tasks, including more intricate weaponry, tools, and buildings.  Part of building your community is being fruitful and multiplying, producing new villagers by placing both in a specifically designated hut.  It adds additional requirements to feed your burgeoning community but is critically important in preparing for the intermittent monster invasions.  The monsters become ferocious with each passing wave, so to survive, enhanced weaponry via magic materials and sturdy armor becomes essential.  Stacklands does a great job throwing challenges your way making it challenging but not cheap.  You’re given a few turns warning when there are impending threats.  If you’re flat footed in keeping your militia well-armed, you’re unlikely to survive, but there was never a time when I felt like the game was unfair.

If I have one critique, it’s the user interface.  It’s clear this game originally was built around the use of a mouse.  Everything is selected by a cursor, and I found myself tinkering with the sensitivity settings to get movement at the right speed after finding the default way too slow.  The village is created on a giant placemat, and I was unable to find a tool to pin down cards in one spot.  For example, if your farm is producing apples, new cards will be spit out around the farm and can shift the placement of the cards around them.  Stacking cards was all manual, meaning if there were similar materials I wanted to store in one place, I had to spend time sorting and organizing.  You can pause the in-game time, but I was irked at times with how much swapping around had to be done.

Certainly, I had a delightful time spinning the different plates of progress and preventative maintenance to build the systems necessary for an expanding world in Stacklands.  It has a pleasant and engaging set of systems fueled by deck building that feels complementary, not shoehorned in.  Difficulty is reasonable, and provided meaningful experience that informed each future run.  Some fiddly controls couldn’t deter my enjoyment, and this’ll stay in my rotation for some time.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Will Nintendo Finally Drop the Switch Price?

« on: July 09, 2024, 12:17:06 PM »

Nintendo has said outright that supply shouldn't be a concern for this next go-around, so unless they badly forecast demand (very possible), it could be that there'll be a next console on the shelves in short order past initial launch.

I don't expect a formal price drop.  Maybe retailers run sales to clear-out supply and make way for what's next, but frankly most of the retailers near me aren't heavily stocked with inventory as-is.  Maybe an enticing black friday deal compels people to go out and buy what's left. 

I'm open to the idea that if they are directly backwards compatible that you could see a drop down to $250 for basic and $300 for retail.  That'd make way for a $350 price for next console, unless they want to be brave and charge $400.  I think the PS5 & Xbox Series have made a permission structure for Nintendo to price it for at least that much unless they're insistent on keeping it at an affordable price point for the broad consumer.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch is so popular people don't even post

« on: July 01, 2024, 10:26:01 AM »

I'm guilty of overlooking this space because the discord seems to have syphoned most of the folks on here.  It's understandable, but I don't enjoy the fire hose stream of communication there.  I think i'm getting generally tired of the internet because of how it's a fire hose of communication and full of quippy hot takes meant to stifle conversations rather than making meaningful relationships.  It's a chicken and egg thing - users abandoned this space, therefore there's less activity.  There's less activity, so this space might not garner many new users.

I love the slower paced nature of the forums, I should do better to make time here rather than the toxic waste of the broader internet. 

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NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia XC: XC1 - Definitive Mafia Edition. Sign-up Thread. Take 2.

« on: July 01, 2024, 10:16:07 AM »

All in, baybee. 

[All that feline fun without the self-seriousness.]

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TalkBack / Little Kitty, Big City (Switch) Review

« on: July 01, 2024, 06:11:23 AM »

All that feline fun without the self-seriousness.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/67736/little-kitty-big-city-switch-review

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’re familiar with Stray, the cat platformer (catformer?) from Annapurna Interactive that takes itself very seriously and received a ton of accolades along the way.  While I’d be remiss to ignore the polish of Stray, its gameplay was too linear in a space that felt open, coupled with a tone that felt self important bordering on excessive.  But what if I wanted to be a cat doing cat stuff in a world focused on fun?  Enter Double Dagger Studio’s Little Kitty, Big City, a title we were able to preview during 2023’s Summer Game Fest with the promise of living the fluff life the way you see fit.

Little Kitty, Big City is the story of a little black cat who fell off the ledge of their apartment home.  The space they tumble into is what amounts to a borough or neighborhood of a larger city, but is bustling with foot traffic from people in business wear.  Apparently this is a commuter town, as they’re all passing through, never taking direction to an open apartment door.  The faceless people were perfect fodder for me, as the cat can both nuzzle up against them for affection or run underneath their legs and trip them up.  Besides the joy of spreading affection or being a nuisance, people will drop “shinies,” basically a currency made of nuts, bolts, and other glittering bits and bobs that a helpful crow will happily take for various helmets and hats.  These range from purely cosmetic, cutesy stuff like a banana hat to a Shiba Inu helmet that confuses dogs that gatekeep certain areas without it.

The cat is kind of fumbly to control.  Their standard walk is a slow saunter that has plenty of maneuverability but crawls at a snail’s pace.  They can also run, but it shifts momentum into a slow-to-turn freight train that makes it tough to travel across some more narrow spaces.  For the most part this balance works - the majority of the map is wide enough to accommodate full speed, but the constrained spaces saw me banging my kitty cranium so often they probably have a concussion.  This is especially evident in areas littered by the cat’s arch nemesis - the dreaded water puddles.  In some instances, I found my cat jumping back and forth as the leap backward they make landed them in another body of water.  While amusing at first, it became frustrating when my lack of precision butted up against the map’s lack of consideration for the toolset provided.  Their crouch is used for both crawling through small spaces and creeping up on unsuspecting birds to pounce on and collect their feathers.  Feathers are used to unlock fast travel points, which come in the form of a network of manholes operated by a raccoon that teleports you through a rainbow portal.  While the map real estate isn’t all that big, these points are critical to jump back and forth places, especially when larger obstacles or nuisances stand in your way.

Without question, it’s a lot of fun being a cat in this game.  Little pleasures like swiping a paw to knock down and shatter a potted plant never got old, and I found myself trying to figure out how to reach them when passing by a ledge or wall.  A slow motion effect takes place when successfully pouncing on a bluebird, and more than once I had to tilt the camera around to see a scene with the cat’s joyful expression as if it were Tom catching Jerry.  In one mission I was tasked with collecting three of a dog’s favorite tennis balls that got scattered about.  When I found one I realized that I couldn’t pick it up with my mouth, only bat it with my paw.  What could have been a frustrating exercise in tedium was set up so that the balls didn’t have to travel far to the end goal.  Similarly, there are soccer goals with stray balls to paw.  Empty soda cans to recycle, stray ducks to find and return to poppa, and shop owners to anger are just a taste of the hijinks potential pussycats are in store for.

The actual layout of the world and map can at times leave something to be desired.  For starters, don’t expect meaningful markers for several of the missions.  Some (like the duckling hunt) will give a basic region to look for each goal, but then there are others which give a basic objective statement and expect you to suss-out where to go.  It lends to the “explore and be a cat” ethos, but those looking for a guided tour along the way will have a hurdle to jump.  The modest sized map shows different landmarks in cutesy styles as if drawn with a crayon which matches the tone but is a tad too obtuse at times to recall what’s exactly in each zone.  While that tone creates issues with navigation, it’s that sense of humor that makes the game shine.  Whether crows, cats, dogs, or ducks, all the animals are bursting with personality and have their own distinct senses of humor (or lack thereof) that play off the curious and silly jokes the cat throws at them.  In a way that lends to the idea that animals only notice other animals, the nondescript, expressionless people populating the city feel more like a movable obstacle.  The mission descriptions, while not always substantive in direction, all feature flavor text that left me with a smile.  The game’s charming sense of humor and earnestness gives Little Kitty, Big City a warm vibe.

Little Kitty, Big City may not be a high profile hit with huge accolades like Stray, and it doesn’t aspire to that kind of photorealism, but what you do get is a breezy, cute, colorful, and fun sandbox to explore.  The animal friends are diverse and expressive without having a lot of physical facial expression, which is a testament to the writers’ skill.  This cartoonish game is uncomplicated in the best ways, and while there’s a little stumbly-ness in some of the movement, it doesn’t detract from this brisk, entertaining experience.

[A man out of time with nothing to lose is a dangerous one.]

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TalkBack / Fading Afternoon (Switch) Review

« on: June 17, 2024, 12:04:12 PM »

A man out of time with nothing to lose is a dangerous one.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/67493/fading-afternoon-switch-review

The independent gaming space isn’t wanting for beat-em-ups, whether retro inspired or a fleshed-out reimagining of the genre. Wayforward has dabbled in both, taking advantage of the River City series with the critically acclaimed River City Girls series and River City Girls 0, which resurrects a formerly Japan-only brawler in the series.  Then there’s more obscure titles from smaller development studios or independent creators that add a heaping spoonful of violence in the case of Mother Russia Bleeds, and visually striking and simplified format a la Super Punch Patrol. Fading Afternoon is the third game made by developer Yeo, a small but scrappy studio whose prior games The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa and Arrest of a Stone Buddha wore their inspirations on their sleeve, with unique if underdeveloped gameplay and little direction on how to play them.  Fading Afternoon marks their third release and is a game which showcases a growth in gameplay structure and hand-to-hand combat.

Fading Afternoon follows the story of Seiji Maruyama, a seasoned Yakuza freshly released from a stint in prison.  He is terminally ill, as evidenced by a first evening of coughing up blood, followed by dialogue you’ll read from other key players such as the Yakuza boss he serves and a hospital nurse who chastises you for reckless behavior, namely turf wars and chain smoking.  With his limited time, Seiji sets out on a mission to revive his clan to its former glory as the dominant faction.  Like their prior entries, the story comes from sparsely distributed dialogue exchanges with his friends, acquaintances, and enemies.  Despite the broader goal, this is Seiji’s personal story first and foremost.  His ticking clock informs the actions you take, and how you spend your time feels like an almost impossible choice.  Those choices fill the gaps of the bullet-point story beats and to me those more mundane daily moments living in the world feel more meaningful in a story such as this.  Despite a limited set of dialogue and things to do, these more mundane activities make the world feel more lived-in than I anticipated.  The main story unfolds as you start turf wars with different factions that have occupied the landmarks, with little snippets of written direction and polaroid shots of the next person to confront.    

Gameplay is split into two parts – day-to-day life sim and combat.  Each morning begins in a hotel room (or on a park bench if you’re in a cheapskate mood).  Leaving an area takes Seiji onto a train with a world map that has points of interest spread across it.  Each marked space will be named by the landmark you can interact with.  For example, your gang’s home base is in the bar district, where an old family friend runs a hot dog stand, and an adjacent bar sells patrons shots, cigarettes, and bottles of liquor you can carry around and pass out on if you overindulge.  A carry-over from Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a dedicated smoking button.  You can light up just about anywhere, and it tickles me how such a small action made me feel cool.  Call it a carry-over of the Camel or Marlboro man advertising to childhood me, but I would at times take the negative health consequences to give Seiji that added wrinkle of being a man with nothing to lose.  Over time, new zones will open up to explore, including a car dealership that increases the limit of 3 area visits to several more in a day, a massage parlor that offers a considerable health increase when used, a hospital to treat serious wounds, a simple and fun batting cage, and a real estate agent who can sell an apartment for a pretty penny but which spares you the daily cost of keeping a hotel room.  It’s a big game of time management, figuring out over time how to maximize actions you can take to offset the ticking time clock of his lifespan.  All of this is fueled by money you gain by pummeling others.  

Juxtaposed to the calm slice of life moments is a complex and messy world of violence.  Practically every location will have a gang alignment marker, and there will be hooligans loitering outside or around the city.    Holding X and hitting B near them will knock one out and begin the turf war.  Generally, you’ll be in hand-to-hand combat with two-to-three at a time, some armed with weapons like a glass bottle or samurai sword.  This is a great improvement to The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, which sometimes had nearly a dozen different characters on-screen in battles that could overwhelm and make it impossible to distinguish between the factions.  Seiji’s combat toolkit is a deceptively simple two-button set-up, one for punch and one for kick.  The complexity comes firstly with a dodge button used by holding down the punch button, and doing so with directional inputs has him bob-and-weaving like Muhammad Ali.  Both the punches and kicks follow the same format – what direction you hold while attacking will dictate the part of the body being targeted, and creates opportunity for combos, grabs, throws, limb snapping, and tackling to the floor for some good old ground and pound.  Yeo deserves an award for most improved in this category both in nuance and visual flair.  Seiji has a flow in his assault like a well-seasoned combatant.  Dodging a bottle, blocking a thug behind me, slipping behind them to roundhouse kick, grabbing a sword out of another’s hand and slicing the next wave with it is smooth as butter.  There’s a brutality during that flow state, not excessive but enough to cause a wince or two when bending an arm in the wrong direction or taking out a gun and mowing people down.  I’d be remiss to not mention this, and I don’t recommend this one for the kids.

An issue I take that lingers from prior Yeo games is a lack of instructions and guideposts to give direction on what to do or how to do things.  There is a tad bit of a tutorial up front, namely about the fighting, that is very welcome.  But the user interface leaves something to be desired.  I struggled to figure out how to find my health meter and money balance, and never found a dedicated button, instead opting to find a vendor and interacting with them to make them visible.  Pausing or hitting the minus button will give a snapshot of options, but some weren’t clearly readable or just provided shorthand descriptions that were unclear.  I started by trial-and-error as I played along, but eventually resorted to skimming through Steam forums for more direct answers.  While I made it work, it’d have been helpful to have some clarity in the game itself.  It’s an added step that’s a nuisance, and one I hope they’ll work to integrate better in future games.

Despite those obtuse instructions, Fading Afternoon is a treat to play.  The world feels lived-in thanks to a narrowly focused daily life sim that pairs well with combat that is the most robust work they’ve done to date.  Minor user interface issues aside, I find myself thinking about the next time I can boot it up, batter some bad guys (or baseballs), and see whether I can make good enough use of my time to progress the story further.   I’ve appreciated witnessing the growth and refinement of Yeo’s development prowess, and this is their best work to date.

[You'll want to dog ear this page]

10

TalkBack / Paper Trail (Switch) Review

« on: May 22, 2024, 09:18:12 AM »

You'll want to dog ear this page

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/67240/paper-trail-switch-review

Paper trail by Newfangled Games caught my eye when a playable demo was featured on a Steam Next Fest.  The brief demo featured a puzzle game with a neat hook, an art style befitting to the gameplay structure, and an endearing story about a woman who goes against her parent’s wishes to break through their boundaries and travel to places she’s never been.    I was allured by the experience and left wondering whether that slice of gameplay would translate well into a longer form.  The sign of a great puzzle game is when it makes you feel smart for every obstacle hurdled over without being so head-bashingly difficult that you lose hope and give up.  Paper Trail deftly balances their feet on that tightrope through a series of mind-bending challenges.

Paper Trail is the story of Paige, a young woman from a small, sleepy fishing town.  She aspires for her life beyond being a townie, striving toward traveling to a university to pursue higher education.  Despite her parent’s protest, she chooses to sneak out from home and set herself on a journey filled with a diverse cast of characters with well written, distinctive personalities that made for a living, breathing world.   They handle storytelling in a storybook-like manner.  Each chapter begins with a page filled with a scene like Paige laying on the bed reading.  As she narrates her story, you’ll bend the pages to create a wholly new scene, prompting the next line of dialogue spoken and a new mini puzzle to fold through.  I really appreciate this kind of interactive storytelling, and it turns what could have been dry sections to sit through into something you can connect to through that additional engagement.

Paper Trail’s main hook is deceptively simple.  You’ll travel along a flattened map with separate screens that contain new puzzles, like top-down Legend of Zelda with how each screen is its own constrained space.  Each section’s backdrop is like pages of a book, and you can fold the map from either a side of the page or by the corners, which depending on where it’s bent from will open new pathways or directions to go in.  You cannot layer the folding pieces on top of each other, a limitation that made me consider just how far a paper bend should go. Like any good puzzler they start with that foundational building block and layer over new mechanics that require a solid understanding of the basics.  It’s like learning math – you’ll learn addition & subtraction before moving onto multiplication & division.  Some examples include boulders which must be pushed or pulled to a switch on the ground, locked doors needing keys, and interestingly floor tiles that look like dice which can’t be walked across unless a matching tile connects to it.  Deeper into the game some screens will include multiple pieces of paper, requiring the player to think about the connective tissue between those papers when folding and plotting out a path.  It forced me to think creatively and tested the limits of my ability to think holistically while juggling all the pieces of the puzzle.

It’s an incredibly clever shift in perspective, and one which took me some time to get comfortable with.  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the concept at first and some of the introductory screens found myself picking away at every nook & cranny trying to understand what I’ve done wrong.  “How do I open this path without blocking off another piece of walkway?” was a common refrain as I got my bearings.   I just could not understand what I was missing.  In light of this, I did what I try to avoid – use the assist tools and hint systems.  One lets you see-through the page to view the layout of the opposite side.  Especially when pages get busy, and you’ve folded them every which way without progress it can be the tipping point toward solving the problem.  The powerhouse assist comes from the other tool. An outline mini-map is displayed with a bullet-pointed timeline below.  Sliding the cursor gives each required bend in sequential order.  Despite being such a substantive tool it never feels like a cheat because it provides details on how to work with moveable items on the map.  Those helped me get over the initial hump and made much clearer to me the baseline logic and how to think through each puzzle.  I felt much better prepared for the pages that followed.

Paper Trail is a series of gratifying problem solving that challenges the player to think differently by bending their brain with every page turn.  It isn’t often I run across a game that’s so thematically cohesive, but between the puzzle structure, storytelling, and crisp and colorful world, this is an experience that feels like every detail was considered in its development, especially for those who get regularly stymied by thought exercises.  Paper Trail is a present that’s just as much fun to unwrap as it is to play with, and ranks in some of the better gaming experiences I’ve had this year.

[Three slopes and you’re out.]

11

TalkBack / Surmount (Switch) Review

« on: May 17, 2024, 05:50:32 AM »

Three slopes and you’re out.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/67183/surmount-switch-review

Publisher Popagenda has built a body of work with independent developers working on quirky experiences, catchy gameplay loops, clever humor & wordplay, and a storytelling style that is sometimes simple with darker undertones.  They’ve been behind some of my favorite gaming experiences in recent memory, including Grindstone, Bugsnax, and Nobody Saves the World.  Months back I took the opportunity to test out the demo for Surmount during a Steam Next Fest and it managed to capture my attention.  With that context, the main question is whether the Switch version is an ideal home for the game.  

Surmount is the story of an aspiring mountain climber, embarking on a journey of Mount Om.  A long bus ride brings a gaggle of people to New Tully, a small tourist stop on the way to the base of the mountain that’s filled with friendly townies who warn explorers of its shifting landscape, making it impossible to use cartography and plot out a map.  This makes Mt. Om–the three tiered, largest peak in the world–all the more daunting for potential hikers.

The act of climbing plays similarly to Heave Ho, an indie party game released in 2019, with a focus of grabbing, climbing, and flinging yourself through an obstacle course.  Point in a direction, hold down one trigger button to hang onto a spot with that hand, use the left stick to keep pointing in that direction, then use the other trigger to grab with the corresponding hand.  If grabbing onto a spot like a slab of wall, holding down a trigger and using a circle motion on the stick can build momentum that can propel you across farther distances.  A small radial stamina meter slowly depletes the further you go without either planting your feet back on the ground, foraging for berries scattered about, or fastening a hook to intermittently placed pieces of wall.  That circle also is a health meter–if you fall far enough, it’ll get cut to pieces, also lowering your total stamina to use. Fall enough times and you’ll collapse and be sent back to New Tully.

Conquering Mt. Om requires a mixture of plotting out the most climbable path, managing stamina, and mixing conservative path-making with big risk-taking maneuvers.  There are too many gaps in grabbable spaces; you can't take a hand-by-hand approach to every meter climbed.  Thankfully, Surmount provides ways to find and use assist tools like rocket pads and a rope with hook you can fling to create a safe point nearly anywhere and rocket pads, which aren't abundant so you’re forced to use them sparingly.  The more daring swings and last ditch jumps to reach a walkable space have a sincere sense of danger–there are intermittent camps with checkpoint markers, but one wrong move can send you tumbling all the way down to ground floor.  The farther up you go, the more terrain hazards you’ll encounter.  Bugs that cling and weigh you down, cracks on the mountainside that are nearly impossible to swing from, ice fragments that freeze the character and shake off like an avalanche, and unclimbable walls are just some of the deterrents to efficient wall scaling.  They’re a nuisance within reason and not a detriment to the experience.

If the big boy mountain is too daunting, New Tully has a bulletin board where denizens post special requests.  Some examples include helping put out a fire, investigating a shrieking sound, and climbing what one person claims is the “hardest mountain”. These bite sized missions can act as mini tutorials but are also fun little diversions from the bigger picture. Not only that, but you can find currency in these spaces more easily than Mt. Om that can be used in shops in town.  I especially enjoyed going to the store where you can buy gacha to unlock articles of clothing and change not only your outfit but your character’s appearance.  My bland character quickly turned into a bad cosplay of Gargamel, and who doesn’t want to see him fall down a mountain?  The town itself is entirely climbable, too; the developers smartly understood to make the area a space to play in as well, with toys to play with and other little surprises.  You’re encouraged to explore every nook and cranny.

The co-op mode is as easy as connecting another controller, and your partner will be dropped into the world at the click of a button.  Teams can participate in the bulletin boards or tackling Mt. Om straight on.  Being tethered by a rope, we slowly started unraveling its limitations.  If one of you goes off screen, a small window pops on screen to show that player’s position.  If that player moves TOO far, the screen abandons the other player and shifts view to the overzealous one.  Players are also at the mercy of each other, as if one tumbled down the mountain the other will be pulled down too.  The mix of confused camera focus and being tethered to each other is a painful difficulty increase that is bound to frustrate, especially if there’s a gap in skill between players.

Unfortunately, one obstacle Surmount couldn’t hurdle is its performance on Switch.  In my time playing, I encountered three separate game breaking bugs.  One time at the first section of Mt. Om, my bargain bin Gargamel started rolling into a corner and teleported to the hidden bottom part of the landscape unseen, with a horrible buzzing and popping sound that I couldn’t escape without restarting the entire game.  The second time I was exploring an icy underwater space and as I grabbed onto the cold ledge to get out and figure out my next steps, I was caught in an endless loop of frame skipping.  The third time during co-op we tumbled after some egregious camera jumping and I got stuck in a loop while my son sat and patiently waited for the game to snap out of it.  With how long in the tooth Switch is, I do expect some compromises on visual fidelity and frame rate–it comes with the territory of a console over seven years old–but these examples stopped me dead in my tracks.  Surmount’s silly veneer aside, this game has too much opportunity to lose meaningful progress without the game punishing me on a technical level.  It’s a bridge too far, and while the developer has promised patches to address these issues, none so far have served as a deterrent to me picking it back up.

The story of Surmount on Switch is a sad one, a pleasant, cute, challenging, uncomplicated, and fun bite-sized adventure that gets completely cratered by insurmountable show-stopping bugs that completely throttled my momentum and made me ask several times “what am I wasting my time for?”  I have to balance giving the developer a chance to produce a minimally disruptive experience and a guidepost of whether to spend hard earned money on a game.  Regretfully I have to recommend you find your sense of adventure elsewhere, whether giving the PC version a flyer or turning to a much more serious title like Jusant.

12

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: May 05, 2024, 12:54:04 PM »

I like this idea!

Working to clean up my backlog, here's what's in my queue.  Will report back once I notch them off the beat list.

Astral Chain (Switch)

Returnal (PS5)

The Lion King (Sega Genesis)

Anomaly Agent (PC)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Xbox series X)

Mario Golf - Game Boy

Not only did I not finish a game, I sold my PS5 last month.  Whoops. 

Mario Golf is a delight though.  Onto the third Tourney so far.  Simple but crisp gameplay. 

13

TalkBack / Re: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (Switch) Review

« on: April 23, 2024, 11:14:04 AM »

I’m happy I read this ignorant review instead of jumping on the hate this game band wagon, this entire review is a guy hating on what made games so popular and the reason why a lot of of starting playing , random encounters, equipment optimization using the blacksmith like in every other suikoden game lmao, he’s just another lazy kid with ADHD that can’t pay attention log enough . It’s ok though my kid hated this game too 19 years old and I can’t get him interested in anything he has to pay attention too. Stop hating on games like this do us all a favor and avoid all games that require any type of patience and concentration

It's one thing to disagree with a review & the conclusions the author reaches, it's not ok to be rude or insulting.

[Land of the feared & the home of the broken]

14

TalkBack / Not Tonight 2 (Switch) Review

« on: April 22, 2024, 09:44:12 AM »

Land of the feared & the home of the broken

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/66950/not-tonight-2-switch-review

Over the past several years there’s been an emergence of work simulators that have found varying levels of success.  Examples include the rural-focused farm simulators, monotonous meditative experiences like Power Wash Simulator, creative clutter clean-up & home renovators in the vein of House Flipper, gory & gross multiplayer mopping in Viscera Cleanup Detail, and fantastic fictional sci-fi experiences like Hardspace: Shipbreaker.  These slow moving, mundane tasks somehow translate to a calming, satisfying loop of finishing the objectives and the accomplishment of a job well done.  One massive gap in the experience is storytelling.  Of those games I’ve played, storytelling (if there is any) is experienced through intercom messages or subtext which can make it feel somewhat hollow.  The first Not Tonight by developer Panic Barn fell into this same hole, but with their follow-up, a more concerted effort was made to expand the experience beyond being a self-insert into a more clearly defined cast of characters and a developed narrative to place them in.

Not Tonight’s core gameplay revolves around being a bouncer for various establishments.  The player manages a queue of people lining up to get into the hot spot, filtering people based on checking their IDs and making sure they are of age to enter, ensuring their profile matches their ID, checking the expiration date, validating the right markings are on the license, and only letting those in who check all the boxes.  Each job has a minimum targeted goal of patrons to let in, as well as bonus rewards for two additional higher head counts achieved.  If you don’t check the IDs well enough and let someone in who shouldn’t be there, the establishment owner will berate you over walkie-talkie, eventually docking your pay or closing early if too many are let through.  Doing these jobs give you cash on-hand, but at the sacrifice of health.  If you lose enough health, it’s game over.  Depending on what landmark you’re working in, additional requirements can also be included.  In one early stage, a city was split off into a war between LARPer knights and wizards, and your job as bouncer was not only to keep wizards from entering the front door but also shooting out of the sky those trying to sneak in via air balloons.  In another you’re required to draw a card with each guest and pick whether theirs is higher or lower.  The game continues to throw new ideas out between stages that keep them fresh, and the creativity shines through.

A great addition to that basic template is overworld exploration.  In Not Tonight you were pinned down into a gulag as a voiceless prisoner.  Here, you’re doing cross-country trips, and the game in turn added an almost Oregon Trail-type experience.  Between different landmarks you’ll travel cross country, with intermittent landmarks in-between.  In those spaces the game writes a scene for where you are and sometimes side characters to interact with.  One of the first pit stops your character parks at a diner to use their toilet, but has to be a paying customer in order to use it.  The dingy diner has a gruff, mean-looking cook who offers you soup.  Do you take the soup or get out of Dodge?  Small choices like that can be the difference between survival and game over.  An additional morale meter can be affected by what happens in these conversations as well, and like the life meter, if this hits zero, you’ll be re-loading your last save.  While not an expansive dialogue tree, these conversation interludes add stakes to every move you make and makes choosing your words carefully all the more important.

Not Tonight 2’s story revolves around a group of friends in Seattle who are protesting the Martyr force, a brutal authoritarian government that has seceded and annexed a healthy portion of the United States and is led by a no-mercy strongman.  In the thick of things, Martyr immigration forces abduct your friend and cart him all the way to Orlando, Florida where a detention center processes who they perceive as criminals.  A group of three friends are then forced to split and start a journey across what was the United States to obtain proper identification (as well as a certified family tree?)  and meet at the detention center to free their buddy.  This nation has split into the Martyr territories, an allied force who leans towards more democratic values, and a portion of the northern territories that have been annexed by Canada.  Those friends are forced to contend with these rival factions while completing jobs via a contract service called BouncR along different landmark cities to finance their cross-country trip.  Along the way are varying personalities, old and new, that add flavor and context to what’s happening in the regions they reside in.  They’ll ask you to let them in with invalid ID or credentials that don’t match the game requirements, which will often result in beneficial outcomes like extra money, leads on where to go next, or resource items that make future levels easier.  I was especially delighted when one eccentric pub owner from the first game found his way into the northwestern states: a real charmer who, since the events of the last game, is much worse for wear and more than a little off kilter.

Those are the bigger story points, but it’s within the character conversations where the narrative is fleshed out.  Each of your friends have distinctive personalities that are reflected in their dialogue.  Of the playable characters, one is a sort of everyman who’s even keeled, another is a laid-back guy who wants to avoid confrontation, and the third is a strong-willed, no BS personality.  They  inform each other’s choices and feel distinct enough to make each playthrough a new experience.  The story arc has the subtlety of a hammer but is lean enough where it felt appropriate to define everything in no uncertain terms, and despite this, the plot weaves in lots of twists, turns, and exposing of puppet masters pulling strings of manipulation around them.  I want a story like this to have larger than life characters, dramatic turns of events, and broad themes to distinguish the different factions at play, and that’s what Not Tonight 2 provides.  

As an American, for me, the lack of subtlety makes sense, and is a carryover from the Brexit-focused first entry in the series.  Whereas the first game featured a self-insert character in a world removed from my understanding, the sequel is a character focused self-reflection of what it is to be a citizen of a crumbling nation at war with itself.  We don’t live in subtle times, and every argument feels existential.  Extremism is engrained in so many of our day-to-day interactions with people, removing the opportunity to find unity.  At times, it can feel like we’re living in a cold civil war – small extremist groups injecting terror in people’s lives based on a skewed view of where we’ve been and ratcheted-up fears of where we’re headed.  Panic Barn uses this backdrop to paint a grim potential reality if projected out.  While Not Tonight 2 is recently released on Switch, original development of the game started all the way back in 2020, and subjects of racial inequality, gestapo-like abductions, other-isms, strong views on fictional pandemics & mask wearing, and the rationalization for violence and oppression on our fellow citizens.  There’s an uncomfortable prescience in themes that should give pause to players, regardless of the side of the fence you lean towards.

Not Tonight was a perspective of the knock-on effects of Brexit in the U.K.; Not Tonight 2 is a dim view of where the U.S. is headed from the outside in.  If Not Tonight’s story was like a protest song, then Not Tonight 2 is a cry for help on our behalf.  Panic Barn wears their beliefs on their sleeve, and that perspective informs the story in a way that makes it impossible to divorce their worldview from how they’ve envisioned our lives.  With that caveat, if you give it a chance, Not Tonight 2 is an expansion of the original into a much more multilayered game with depth that makes for a more fulfilling experience.  Coupling that with a tried-and-true queue management core and a cross country road trip makes for a game that is a big step above its predecessor.

[ANTONBLAST is a beautiful disaster of a 2D platformer.]

15

TalkBack / ANTONBLAST (Switch) Preview

« on: April 18, 2024, 01:02:49 PM »

ANTONBLAST is a beautiful disaster of a 2D platformer.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/66934/antonblast-switch-preview

I’m concerned for developer Summitsphere’s well-being, because their Kickstarter funded game Antonblast is the kind of shared fever dream where if it were a child of mine, I’d be regularly checking their temperature and considering when to take them to the hospital.  The game is billed as inspired by the likes of Warioland.  I haven’t played that series since the black and red monstrosity on the Virtual Boy, and while I could find the connective tissue between the two, I couldn’t anticipate how the intensity has been cranked up to eleven and a weird factor that is off the charts.

Either as Dynamite Anton (or Annie), the player is equipped with a dash, dive, and hammer.  The hammer is a tool of destruction for enemies and breakable environmental barriers like blocks, crates, and heart containers.  It also acts as a high jump by jumping and hitting down plus attack, creating a bounce that is higher but can feel unwieldy.  The dive can be used as an attack, and in some cases is the only way to open pipes that funneled me to the next section of stage.  Anton has the heft you’d expect from Wario – inherently slow with a locomotion that can get out of control if ramping up to top speeds.  Like rolling downhill, trying to pump the breaks is folly.   The levels in the demo are shaped around Anton/Annie’s character traits, and while manic, feel designed tightly to their range of motion.  Those levels are so full of destructive obstacles that make both the dash & dive critical.  A door may be blocked by a pile of boxes, and large gaps between platforms make the dash essential.

The levels are a journey of bounding past obstacles, including blocks that can only be destroyed by pulling the pin on a box, four of them total with the different suits of a deck.  Those open up the next sections, which eventually ends in what is lovingly described as “happy hour”.  When the alarm hits, Happy Hour turns the levels into a timed race back to the level’s beginning with sometimes wild changes such as a hot air balloon crashing and creating a pit to fall into.  There’s also opportunities to collect more points that look like poker chips and make a slot machine jackpot sound while grabbing them.  In the demo, neither of the happy hour end chases had me running up against the buzzer, but given they’re early levels, I could see it becoming a more distinct risk/reward situation.

I mean this in the nicest way possible – the characters and levels are ugly.  Everything has a layer of grunge to it, and there’s an asymmetry that adds to Antonblast’s unhinged nature.  Anton’s facial expressions, body language, and brief snippets of dialogue give the impression that he could be Wario’s long lost brother who took a road trip to burning man and came back changed, worse for the wear.  It’s an intentional ugliness well executed, and evokes memories of Earthworm Jim and Ahh Real Monsters.

Antonblast is primed to be one of the more fascinating 2D platformers of the year, bursting with character and a layer of filth that makes me want to get down in the mud with them.  Antonblast will be available on Nintendo Switch this year.

[Europa may stir the spirit of adventure in you.]

16

TalkBack / Europa (Switch) Preview

« on: April 18, 2024, 01:02:37 PM »

Europa may stir the spirit of adventure in you.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/66932/europa-switch-preview

Video games are a great medium to scratch that itch for exploration.  In my day-to-day, cubicle squatting, paper pushing life, a yearning to break the monotony and have a wholly new experience can be constant, especially when the next vacation is out in the far future.  Even if not adorned with the high-octane, action-packed worlds of something like Spider-Man or inFamous, those quieter and more thought-provoking worlds can hit emotional peaks and artistic beauty that eclipses the potential graphical and framerate downgrades.  Europa is a quiet, lush world with expansive-looking landscapes, sparse patches of living creatures, and signs of civilization that either look abandoned or crumbling.

Europa is the story of a boy landing on the fictional, titular world.  As a nameless protagonist, I was led-along story beats by pages in a journal from an uncle who writes to their nephew of the wonders of Europa, and this uncharted world’s opportunity to be a new home for the human race.  He speaks of Europa as a paradise, and writes in language that not only describes the land but develops his character traits.  It’s a great way to manage story beats while also signposting, but the injection of his perspective colors the world in a way that left me questioning whether we’re getting the unvarnished truth or his rose-colored view.

Europa does this neat trick where while the landscapes made me feel like the scope was endless, different areas are broken up into still large, but constrained zones.  These broad spaces have the streamlined tasks earmarked by journal entries but you’re welcome to investigate every nook and cranny for collectables or to see all the sights.  Movement across the world is quiet and slower paced, but it feels intentional to force the player to stop and smell the roses.  A jump, charge jump, glide, and a booster backpack don’t increase your speed, but do increase the verticality of Europa.  The booster pack needs refills from glistening blue orbs, but in the demo they were littered about and didn’t pose any restrictions. The joy I felt in shooting up like a rocket and then slowly gliding back down to earth was palpable and never got tiring.

I would be remiss to not touch on performance, art, and audio production.  In a prior Steam Next Fest, I had the pleasure of trying out this same demo on PC.  While the PC is undeniably the better performing platform depending on your rig, I did not find the Switch demo to be such a step down that it’d mar the experience.  The world is gorgeous but not crisply drawn, which allowed a graphical hit without sacrificing the wonder and beauty.  Think of something like thatgamecompany’s Flower – the PlayStation 3 original has all the beauty and depth of more current ports, but just lacks some of the crisp single blades of grass and can’t hit sixty frames per second.  Europa’s charm is married with a soundtrack anchored by quiet piano and stringed instruments that crescendos into sweeping moments to create wonderful exclamation points of emotion.

If the demo is a good reflection of the final release, Europa will provide a world to explore with heart in story and presentation that is undeniable.  Europa comes to Nintendo Switch later this year.

[A purrates life for me]

17

TalkBack / Cat Quest III (Switch) Preview

« on: April 18, 2024, 01:01:51 PM »

A purrates life for me

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/66930/cat-quest-iii-switch-preview

Since 2017, Singapore-based developer The Gentlebros have churned out a series of action role-playing games centering around a heroic orange tabby gallivanting across worlds littered with cats, rodents, and dogs.  The Cat Quest series is a string of adventures sprawled along an isometric world to explore and featuring brisk dungeon crawling, uncomplicated combat action, a loot-based leveling & upgrade system, and incredibly clever, pun-filled writing–with characters’ personalities bursting at the seams. Cat Quest 3 was featured at the April 17th Nintendo Indie Showcase with a playable demo released shortly after, and fans of the series are in store for more furry fun.

The demo starts with a beautifully animated introduction cutscene setting the table for the adventure.  The purring protagonist was washed ashore with a blue ghost-like companion who acts like Olivia from Mario in Paper Mario: The Origami King – the color commentary to the voiceless main character.  The first island serves as a brief tutorial, explaining the melee combat, a blunderbuss that gives a ranged physical attack, and vendors from whom you can buy or sell equipment, perform upgrades, restore your health, and even initiate cooperative play.  I was not able to test co-op, but the camera view is spacious enough to where I wouldn’t expect issues doing so.  Afterward, you’re able to commandeer a new ship or seafaring. There’s a simple joy to sailing the seas.  While segments of the world are partitioned off by dotted lines (presumably to be opened as story beats are completed), the demo gives enough space for players to glide along the water and engage in sea battles with other pirate ships.  In sea battles I had two cannonball attacks – a basic shot and a power shot.  It mirrors the on-land toolkit where there are two separate basic and magic attacks.  Whereas movement on land is precise, I had to account for a wide turn radius while circling combatants, which gave a distinct feel to these engagements.  I suspect exploring the open waters will be a great addition that keeps Cat Quest 3 fresh.

The on-land dungeon crawling in the demo was uncomplicated.  Another cat pirate sent me into a cave to collect five items.  It was linear exploration, with scripted enemy placement and the way blocked off until they were dealt with.  Small chests nearby contained mission critical items, as well as a few that gave a new sword with better damage stats and an accessory that boosted overall health.  Combat itself is slick, with our feline hero dodging and attacking with a smoothness that rivals Cat Quest’s more well known contemporaries like Hades.  The electric spell plods forward, lasting 3-5 seconds, stunning and causing damage as it travels.  It felt fantastic sending the ball of electricity, walking along with it and pummeling enemies in tandem.  Boss battles were approachable, with indicators warning of incoming attacks and a lifebar that was large but not prohibitively so.

This was my introduction to the Cat Quest series, but in talking with fans I know, Cat Quest 3 could be catnip for devotees and incoming new players alike.  Look forward to the game’s release on Nintendo Switch August 8th.

18

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 11, 2024, 10:07:51 AM »

Don't expect 6/6 for me, I'm just trying to give myself a wide berth for success 

19

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 09, 2024, 09:13:49 PM »

• Cult of the Lamb - While this is available on Switch, the NWR review mentioned significant performance issues so I picked this up for Playstation 5. I am eventually going for completion but this month just aiming for beating the main campaign, which is about 75% done.

I was pretty disappointed in the Switch version at launch, the performance issues really sunk my grade.  I hope for the Switch players Devolver cleaned it up a bit, but would definitely recommend other platforms.

20

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 09, 2024, 09:11:22 PM »

I like this idea!

Working to clean up my backlog, here's what's in my queue.  Will report back once I notch them off the beat list.

Astral Chain (Switch)

Returnal (PS5)

The Lion King (Sega Genesis)

Anomaly Agent (PC)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Xbox series X)

Mario Golf - Game Boy

[WB is getting a track record for cancelling properties]

21

TalkBack / WB Retiring Adult Swim Games

« on: March 13, 2024, 01:10:58 PM »

WB is getting a track record for cancelling properties

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/66596/wb-retiring-adult-swim-games

An update to the March 8th Nintendo World Report Article:https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/66517/warner-brothers-closing-adult-swim-games-brand-likely-delisting-games

Last week other news outlets started reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery is set to remove Adult Swim Games from digital storefronts, potentially putting twenty-six games at risk of erasure within the next 60 days as of May 6th.  We first heard of this news from Matt Kain, developer of Fist Puncher.  In a follow-up statement on 2Bit’s situation, Matt Lewandowski provided the following:

“A director of production from WB Discovery reached out on Monday March 4th and informed us that they will be retiring Fist Puncher due to "internal business changes." Retirement is scheduled within the next 60 days (no date set yet). We requested that they transfer Fist Puncher back to our studio (we have a developer account on Steam where we publish other games so they could simply use the Steam transfer tool to transfer the game back to us). Their response was that they "cannot transfer the game" due to the fact that they "made the decision not to transfer ownership due to logistical and resource constraints." It sounds like they are choosing not to transfer games back to any of the studios that created them.

We're still hoping that WB Discovery chooses to give Fist Puncher back to us. It's been out for 11 years and we built a community around it through Steam. We also had an incredible experience working with Adult Swim over the years. The original team that helped us get Fist Puncher on Steam was passionate about elevating interesting and unique games from small studios. That said, if we do not get the current release of Fist Puncher transferred over to us, then we will likely re-release it under our own account. We still own the game and the IP so a re-release is certainly possible. And as someone who is passionate about preserving game history, I hate to see any game get lost to corporate red tape..”

Since then, we have reached out to individual developers who worked with Adult Swim Games to learn how this has affected their work. Some titles (Glittermitten Grove, Battle Chef Brigade and Rain World) have been spared thanks to retaining the rights to their works prior to the incident.  In one extraordinary case, Owen Reedy, Developer of Small Radios Big Televisions, released the Windows PC version of the game free to download on his personal website.  

For others, the future of their games are still murky, and Warner Bros’ recent history of shelving films like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme doesn’t inspire confidence in preserving the games’ availability.  Further statements from developers impacted are below.  We will update this story as more details are available.  

“I haven't retained a lawyer to interpret this situation, but to the best of my understanding Glittermitten Grove is safe. Twinbeard got the publishing rights back in 2020.”

Jim Stormdancer, Twinbeard Games (Glittermitten Grove)

“Fortunately we were able to regain the Rain World publishing rights from Adult Swim Games a few years back (after a 1 year+ legal battle), and afterward we were able to sign a very reasonable publishing deal with Akupara Games. So no, Rain World will not be de-listed.

We had the tremendous advantage of being successful and having funds and a legal team at our disposal. We were very lucky but I'm sure few of the other ASG devs will have the resources to fight this.

These are small independent developers, often solo devs, who signed seemly straight forward publishing deals only to get sucked into a world of sketchy corporate shenanigans. The situation absolutely sucks and I hate it.

Our hearts go out to all our peers who are affected.”

James Thereien, Videocult (Rain World)

“Thankfully, our lawyers had a clause added to the ASG contract that enabled us to get the publishing rights back over a year ago. Even so, it felt like we were lucky to terminate the contract then because so few people were left who knew how to use the Nintendo and Steam backends to complete the publishing control transfer.

We haven't received any communication, presumably because we got all the rights back well before this recent decision.

I think it's extremely unfortunate that it sounds like the games will be delisted instead of someone doing a relatively small amount of paperwork or selling the rights to an indie publisher who could then help out. At the least, this is a harsh reminder of how important it is to take care when signing publisher contracts. Dev teams are often very close to running out of money when signing with a publisher, which puts them in a vulnerable position.

At the least, WB should terminate the agreements with the devs so that they can re-publish the games. That won't fix the damage that will be done by delisting, but players and fans shouldn't lose the opportunity to play so many great games.

Thankfully, our upcoming, unannounced title won't be in danger of this sort of disaster. I hope indie publishers improve their contracts to put dev teams and long-term access first.”

Tom Eastman, President of Trinket Studios. (Battle Chef Brigade)

“We are aware of the situation and I can guess it's a matter of time that WB sends us the ill fated official email, but as of today nothing yet.”

Enrique Corts, Super Mega Team (Rise & Shine)

22

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: January 25, 2024, 10:30:18 AM »

Goodbye Volcano High is a lovely visual novel with a coming of age tale juxtaposed against a giant meteor coming for you.  Characters are well developed and feel genuine.  The personal struggles shown are relatable, if maybe a bit squeaky clean. 

Gameplay is threadbare - dialogue options that give the impression of agency/affecting the outcome.  A music rhythm minigame that has button inputs that feel unique.  There's three separate tracks (left, right, vertical) that I had to point in that direction as notes fly through.  There's also button inputs with a radial that closes in on it before timing it perfectly to the beat.  It's not complex but mixes up the rhythm just enough to avoid boredom.

If you like "one of those" games, it's worth a look.

23

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch is so popular people don't even post

« on: January 03, 2024, 09:11:41 AM »

The Switch has been by far my most used console since launching.  Even with how dry it was to start, Breath of the Wild provided plenty to do on it.  Graphical fidelity is nice, but performance is much more important to me now, so as long as the system can keep outputting good games that run decently I'm fine. 

132.2 million?

Back in the Gamecube days the consoles was doing so abysmally poor and everyone was up on here talking all the time.

Didn't find myself here until the later Wii years, and had been active during the Wii U era.  I do miss the more active community here, but suspect the discord has pulled some people away.

24

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: January 03, 2024, 09:04:16 AM »

My youngest & I rolled credits on Untitled Goose Game over the past weekend.  It shines as a co-op game.  We were able to have a lot of fun causing chaos together, and having an extra goose also helped get through some later areas that would have been tougher solo. 

25

General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: November 30, 2023, 09:53:46 AM »

Jusant is a lovely game about mountain climbing.  It's quiet with environmental storytelling and a charming artstyle.  Also fairly brief & on Gamepass.  Highly recommend.